Blog posts

1st try croissants
I used the "short method" from the Sunset book but next time I'll use the layered way as in the Sunset book or Jacque Pepin's "The Art of Cooking, Volumne 2".  

I think the oven should have been hotter (such as 425F instead of 325F).  I should have made more folds to try to get better layers but they are crunchy, chewy, and tasty........and like a magician, they  dissappeared.

I'm grateful to the people here who have helped me advance in my bread making techniques.  I want to share my joy of success with them and the rest of the community. Even though my projects are not perfect, I've always made progress. Given time and practice, they will continue to improve in the future.

Making breads must be a disease like any other addiction.  You don't want to stop once you get going.  

We just planted a baby avocado tree in our backyard.  A big storm last November uprooted one of our jacaranda trees and there was a spot available.  It will be years before our avocado bears fruit if it survives, but I am getting ahead of my game and practising my skill.  

I made David's famous Pain de Campagne AKA San Jaoquin Sourdough today. I followed his excellent instructions exactly making one large batard. I baked the loaf on a stone in the center of the oven which proofed to be the wrong rung for my on-the-small-side wall oven as the loaf got a little too brown.

I was refreshing my starter to make pain de campagne when I saw this post. Your Italian bread is beautiful inside and out. I decided to try this and was VERY happy with the results. A really delicious bread, we ate half a loaf already.

I have been making a lot a lazy bread lately. Takes me 20 minutes (incl. cleaning up, excl. baking time) for two breads. I always add seeds, makes the taste much better.

For flour I use 2/3 white, 1/3 rye or 1/3 five grain flour. I have tested the different percentages, mostly I go with 1/3 en 2/3.

I tried those pot stockers featured on this week's Wild Yeast blog. I was amazed how incredible easy they were to make and roll out. This was my first time and I noticed they were a little chewy where they were sealed. I think this was because I didn't roll them out quite thin enough, but the chewiness could have also come from my choice of flour (see below). I sprinkled them with a little cornstarch to prevent sticking. I will never used purchased won ton wrappers for pot stickers again!

[url=http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/12491/chinese-sourdough-bread/][color=blue]You can see it a mile away[/color][/url], right?    

By trade, I'm a .NET web programmer....who happens to be a former professional artisan baker. I decided to create a tool to make life a little easier. I have seen many questions posted here in regards to volume, weight, and baker's percentage in bread formulas. The tool I have created allows you to convert a "recipe" where the quantities are expressed in volume  to a formula where the quantities are expressed in grams, along with the baker's percentage of each ingredient. This is a database driven tool.

Yes, made with sesame oil, shallots and shallot onions.